Chapter 21
“For all Eloise’s righteous defiance and defense of her individuality,” Hugh told Gwen, “she still loved our parents. Still wanted them to be proud. So as soon as we passed the bar, we both joined the family firm and began drafting contracts for billionaires and absurdly wealthy corporations.”
That didn’t sound like something either twin would enjoy, even given Hugh’s more duty-bound and rule-abiding temperament.
“The work could be…uncomfortable.” Hugh shifted restlessly.
“Too many times, the opposing party was vulnerable in some way. In desperate need of money for their own survival, coerced into signing, or simply too unknowledgeable to understand what they were agreeing to. Without drawing undue attention to my actions, I tried to prevent my clients from taking advantage of that vulnerability, but I didn’t always succeed. Didn’t even usually succeed.”
He blew out a hard breath. “And if I disliked those occasions, Eloise hated them. She also hated that her clients flagrantly broke both SERC and common human law but were never punished, while the opposing parties suffered for far less cause. So she started devoting most of her attention to her personal life instead of work. She married a colleague, Roarke. And…” His mouth twisted.
“Without telling our parents, she made contact with our father’s estranged family. ”
Ah, yes. The aforementioned lying grifters. Their entrance into the tale didn’t bode well.
“Dad didn’t lie. They were, in fact, chaotic criminals, and they pretended affection while wringing her dry emotionally and financially.
” Hugh’s distress had turned his skin scorching, and Gwen kicked aside the blanket tangled near their feet.
“She wanted their false love so badly, it took years for her to cut them off.”
Gwen frowned. “Her empath ability didn’t save her?”
That was one of the most useful parts of the talent—being able to tell when others’ emotions didn’t match their words. Sure, truthseekers could determine lies with more precision, but shouldn’t Eloise’s ability have given her some warning?
“She didn’t want to believe what her ability was telling her.” His expression darkened further. “I was worried about her, so I researched my father’s family and shared what I found.”
“She didn’t believe that either?”
He shook his head. “She called me overly cynical and cautious. Told me I’d cut myself off so completely from my human heritage, I couldn’t understand the complexities of their lives and emotions. And she was probably right. But so was I.”
Stark grief for his sister’s loss roughened his voice.
“Eloise was a shining beacon, Gwen. Funny, kind, loving. Only someone without a heart could possibly stand to break hers, but my father’s family did it without remorse.
And they weren’t alone. She didn’t know it yet, but her new husband had already begun sleeping with his administrative assistant. ”
“Oh, no.” Gwen cringed in sympathy for his sister—and discreetly nudged her braid away from her neck, because the heat of his anger was making her sweat. “That’s awful, obviously, but it’s also so banal. Like a cliché of conscienceless men with wealth and power.”
“I think part of El hated that cliché as much as the actual adultery.” A deepening flush burnished the thick, smooth skin over his cheekbones.
“Roarke confessed the affair and left her. And since infidelity is quite common in higher demon circles, his admission of cheating didn’t hurt his social or professional standing.
He left Blackes with his new wife to found his own firm and took his many clients with him. ”
Hugh’s hands on Gwen were gentle, his memory-clouded eyes hard.
“After a while, El’s grief turned to rage.
Against her ex-husband. Against high demon society.
Against our judicial system. She told me all our rigid rules were both arbitrary and unevenly, unfairly applied.
They bound the helpless but not the powerful, and they did so by design, not by accident. ”
“Well, she wasn’t wrong about that,” Gwen couldn’t help saying.
“I know. I know.” He blew out a hard breath.
“I didn’t argue, because I couldn’t. And I was angry for her sake too, but I didn’t know how to make things better.
” His every muscle strained with tension.
“Then came that final, awful contract ten years ago. Those senseless human deaths. The fire. Then her senseless death.”
Gwen hoped being frozen to death didn’t hurt. And whatever afterlife assignment his sister had received, Gwen wished her peace, as well as all the love Eloise had offered others and been denied in return.
“In the end, all the warmth in her huge heart went cold.” His face twisted in anguish. “Just like the rest of our hearts, she’d probably have said.”
“Hugh.” She framed his hot, pained face in her hands, willing him to think past his obvious guilt. “She loved you, and she could feel your emotions. Do you honestly think she’d have ever called your heart cold?”
His lips trembled briefly, and he pressed them tightly together. “Probably not.”
She raised a challenging eyebrow. “Probably?”
“Definitely,” he conceded reluctantly. “She definitely wouldn’t have said that about me.”
Gwen couldn’t contain her skepticism on another point either. “The CEO and his fixer…do you believe she truly would have turned them inside out like they claimed?”
“I don’t know.” He turned his face into Gwen’s palm with a tired sigh. “If so, she never intended to survive the encounter. For half-demons, the enormous outlay of power would kill us on the spot.”
In that moment, perhaps it was a price she’d been willing to pay. Which was a horrifically sad thought to entertain, even without knowing Eloise.
“Was she taken…” Gwen bit her lip and tried again. “Were you able to…”
What was the politest way to ask whether his sister’s reaper had immediately shuffled Eloise off to whatever afterlife the Fates had mandated?
Or whether that reaper had instead escorted his sister to the Realm Below, where a demon lawyer would teleport into Death’s courtroom and argue her case before an afterlife judge?
That courtroom constituted the only semipublic area of the Realm.
Otherwise, its fathomless, unmapped expanse was accessible only to Death and the Fates, who ruled sovereign over the territory, punished intrusions in grisly fashion, and employed an unknown number of workers to process the courtroom’s decisions and track the destinations chosen for the dead.
As the old saying went, you had to die or apply to see the Realm for yourself.
That said, most deaths didn’t actually require all the administrative bother of a trial there.
Appropriate final destinations for the dead were usually clear, with no need for lawyers.
Depending on what Hugh’s sister had actually done in her final, grief- and rage-filled moments, though, a just afterlife assignment might not have been quite so clear.
And if a trial had been held, maybe Hugh had been able to argue his sister’s case? See her one last time?
“Eloise was brought to the Realm Below,” Hugh said, somehow deciphering what Gwen couldn’t quite bring herself to ask.
“I wanted to represent her, but my lack of teleportation ability meant I couldn’t.
Our mother argued her case instead, and my sister’s sentence was redacted.
Even Mom doesn’t know where Eloise went or what’s happening to her. ”
Given his clear adoration for his sister, that uncertainty must eat at him daily.
“I’m so sorry.” Gwen smoothed a rumpled bit of his beard. “Were you tempted to leave the firm then?”
“I couldn’t resign.” His voice sounded uncertain, though, as if he were now questioning his decision of a decade before.
“Between the departure of Roarke’s clients and the fresh stains on our family’s reputation, Blackes struggled for a long time, and I felt partially responsible for those struggles. ”
Mystified, she stared at him. “Why?”
“My parents said I should have realized what was happening with Eloise and intervened before she reached the breaking point, and…” He sighed. “They were right. Although their failing business was the least disastrous consequence of my neglect by far.”
“You stayed out of guilt.” However misplaced, she very carefully didn’t add.
“I paid penance where I could.” Pain soaked every syllable of the simple statement. “It took five years of endless, meticulous work before Blackes’s most important clients returned.”
“And once the business stabilized, you felt able to leave,” she concluded.
“To my great relief.” He laid a hand over hers, pressing her palm tighter to his cheek. “After my sister’s death, I couldn’t unsee the injustices in my work, and I couldn’t unsee Eloise. Everywhere I went in the office, her ghost was there too.”
He hesitated. “I know Josiah has been an ass, and I’m very sorry, Gwen.
If he doesn’t do better when it comes to you, I’ll cut ties with him.
I would have already done so, except…in the aftermath of my sister’s death, he was our only family friend who stayed loyal.
And once the firm’s finances had stabilized, he encouraged me to run for election as a SERC councilor. ”
At least Gwen could give the elder demon credit for that much.
Because yes, Josiah truly had been an ass toward her, and he seemed unlikely to un-ass himself in the immediate future.
She believed Hugh’s promise to part ways with his mentor if the other demon didn’t reform, though.
Just as she believed Hugh’s declaration that his election to SERC had been a great relief to him.
But she also remembered the news coverage of his campaign’s victory party five years ago. The trays of champagne to toast the new councilor. The orchestra. The grand ballroom filled with supporters in elegant dresses and dark, boring suits.